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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Blind Assassin, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth
Doomed Love
Oppression vs. Resistance
Violence and Death
Emulation, Repetition, and Identity
Summary
Analysis
In The Blind Assassin, the woman arrives at a café, where the man is already waiting for her. He chastises the woman for wearing such a fancy coat and thereby drawing attention to herself, to which she replies that it’s just “an ordinary raincoat.” They have an argument about kindness, which the man denounces as reprehensible—he says that he’d rather the woman be selfish than kind.
The man and woman spend much of their rendezvous fighting. Although their arguments usually have a flirtatious tone, underneath this lies the real issue of the class tensions between them.
Themes
The man indicates that he’s still in hiding, on the run from an unspecified authority. He explains that the café is run by a friend of a friend and that he’s watching the door in case he needs to escape through the back. The woman asks the man if he “did it,” and he indicates that he didn’t but that he “could have” because he was present. He says he’s being targeted as a scapegoat by people who don’t like him and his “bad ideas.” The woman says she’s worried about him, and he replies with vulgar comments about her body.
The Blind Assassin is written in a vague enough way that this scene could depict all kinds of different scenarios. As the novel progresses, it will become more clear what is being represented here. What is clear thus far is that the woman has a higher class status than the man and that the man is on the run from some kind of authority.
Themes
An article in the Port Ticonderoga Herald and Banner from March 16, 1933 details Captain Norval Chase’s support of the relief effort for those impoverished by the Depression. Norval is quoted as arguing that the country must come together to alleviate the crisis in the same way it did during the war. Meanwhile, the knitwear manufacturer Richard E. Griffen has publicly criticized Norval for “depriving the working man of wages” by giving his products away for free. The article also notes that Chase Industries has suffered as a result of the Depression and is struggling to keep its factories open without resorting to layoffs. Meanwhile, strikebreaking in other parts of the country has resulted in union riots and “Communist-inspired bloodshed.”
This newspaper article sets the scene for the next section of the main narrative. During the Great Depression, people at all income levels lost money and struggled to maintain financial stability. At the same time, those hit hardest by the Depression were not factory owners like Norval and Richard, but rather low-wage workers. These workers became unemployed by the millions, and many of them had no savings or property and were supporting large families, leading to desperate circumstances.
Themes
In The Blind Assassin, the man takes the woman to the dingy house belonging to a friend where he’s currently staying. They kiss, and the man leads the woman upstairs to his room on the third floor. It is obvious that he’s made an effort to make the bed look nice, smoothing out the chenille spread that lies on top of it, which gives the woman a painful feeling of sympathy for him. The man offers her from scotch, and she accepts. She playfully points out that he has been extra cruel to her that day, and he replies that it’s in “self-defence.” After they have sex, the woman thinks about how easy it would be for someone to kick down the door. They smoke, and the man asks if the woman wants to hear a “bedtime story.”
While the man is often depicted as being somewhat callous and even sometimes cruel to the woman, the effort he makes in this passage shows that he has a gentler side and cares about her feelings, too. Indeed, the fact that he makes this effort despite being on the run and having to rely on the charity of friends for somewhere to sleep makes him an even more sympathetic character.
Themes
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A December 5, 1934 article in The Mail and Empire describes Richard Griffen’s praise for Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, who recently violently suppressed a gathering of communists in Toronto. Many of those arrested were imprisoned or deported. Griffen also expresses his disapproval of the “soft socialism” being implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S.
Richard clearly favors right-wing politics and the violent oppression of communists. Like many wealthy manufacturers, he prioritizes his own class interests over the wellbeing of workers.
Themes
In The Blind Assassin, the man returns to the story of Zycron: he describes a dark night, after all three of the planet’s suns have set. A girl, who is about to be sacrificed, is lying on a bed in the Temple. The bed she is lying on is officially called “the Bed of One Night,” but the girls call it “the Bed of Voiceless Tears.” According to myth, each girl is visited by the Lord of the Underworld the night before she is sacrificed so that she won’t die a virgin, a feared category on Zycron. Women who die virgins are said to become spirits who prey on men and turn them into “obedient zombies.”
Several of Atwood’s novels focus on the forms of sexual violence to which women are subjected—and particularly the violent fetishization of ruining a woman’s purity. In this case, raping the girl who is about to be sacrificed is seen as a special privilege and pleasure for the Lord of the Underworld. The fact that this takes place in a story within Laura’s novel perhaps suggests that Laura herself may have witnessed or experienced a sexual assault at some point.
Themes
The girls know that the Lord of the Underworld isn’t real—he’s really just a courtier who disguises himself and pays for the privilege of raping them the night before they are killed. At this moment, a group of “barbarians” are preparing to attack Sakiel-Norn and burn it down. They do not have technology, wealth, literacy, or a king on their side—only a leader called the Servant of Rejoicing. Other people call this tribe the People of Desolation, but they call themselves the People of Joy. The Servant of Rejoicing believes that he received a message from the gods instructing him to destroy Sakiel-Norn. The People of Joy believe that all the inhabitants of Sakiel-Norn are “tainted” by luxury, ritual sacrifice, and the “worship of false gods.”
Although the story of Sakiel-Norn is set on an alien planet, it draws on real human history. The ritual rape of virgins and fighting based on conflicting religious views have historically occurred in many cultures on Earth. Furthermore, the idea that Sakiel-Norn and its inhabitants are tainted by luxury and corrupt values helps emphasize the possible parallel between the fictional city and the world in which the man telling the story lives. As a radical leftist, he perhaps believes that there are societies in the real world that have similarly been corrupted by wealth and greed.
Themes
The inhabitants of Sakiel-Norn are unaware of the approach of the People of Joy. Inside the city, a group of courtiers are planning to overthrow the King with the help of the best blind assassin. His mission is to kill the girl about to be sacrificed in the Temple, dress in her clothes, and await the Lord of the Underworld, who is the courtier leading the revolt. However, the timing has been messed up—currently, the blind assassin will get to the girl before the courtier. The woman interrupts the man to say the story is getting too gruesome, but he reminds her that he is a professional writer and that she should be “grateful” to get one of his stories for free.
The fact that the woman interrupts the man to protest about how brutal the story is could be taken as evidence that she is sheltered and sensitive due to her class position. At the same time, it may also be the case that the man is titillated by his own story of rape and murder in a way that the woman finds morally objectionable.
Themes
The man continues in his description of the plot, explaining that the blind assassin believes he will be rewarded with a generous fee and that he plans to escape in the aftermath of the murder, when the plotters will be ruthlessly suppressed and order will be restored. However, in reality, the loyalists who hired the blind assassin intend to kill him as soon as he has performed the task for which they hired him. Arriving at the temple, the blind assassin kills the female sentry guarding the door and he lets himself inside.
Despite the blind assassin’s extraordinary skill, which makes him valuable to the people who hire him, he is ultimately treated as disposable due to his status as a formerly enslaved Ygnirod, the lowest cast position in the Sakiel-Norn hierarchy.
Themes
The man and woman hear a sound, and the man asks the woman to put on a slip so that she can look out the window and see what’s going on. The woman objects but eventually does so, and she assures the man that there’s “nothing out of the ordinary” outside. The man asks her to come back to bed, but she says she has to go.
Retreating into a fantasy world of science fiction is appealing to the man and woman due to the tense and bleak nature of their real-life surroundings.
Themes
A 1934 article in The Mail and Empire describes a strike and lockout taking place at Chase and Sons Industries Ltd. After police were outnumbered by the striking workers, the army was called in to subdue them. Before they accomplished this, the strikers rioted, looted, and started a fire that killed a night watchman. The editor of the Port Ticonderoga newspaper claims that the riot only turned violent after “outside agitators” gave the strikers liquor. Norval Chase declined to comment.
There is no doubt that the striking workers perpetuated serious violence, as shown most clearly by the fact that the fire they started killed a man. At the same time, the desperate circumstances of the Depression and the injustice of wealth inequality arguably make the violence more understandable (though, of course, not excusable).
Themes
In The Blind Assassin, this week the man is staying in a different house owned by a wealthier friend. The woman worries about this friend knowing that she’s there—and, even worse, knowing her identity. The man stares at the woman, and when she asks why, he replies that he is memorizing what she looks like so that he can recall it later, after he’s “gone.” They lie in bed together, talking and teasing each other flirtatiously. The man continues with his story. The People of Joy have set up camp one day’s march away from Sakiel-Norn. Enslaved women pour the men stew and alcohol while the “official wives” sit separately. The men nervously await the following day. They are afraid of losing, and although they might not admit it, they do not approach killing with relish.
While much of the novel (and, again, Atwood’s work more broadly) depicts the brutal and horrifying ways in which gender-based oppression harms women, this passage considers how men can be harmed by gendered social codes as well. The male fighters of the People of Joy feel pressured to pretend that they are brave and enthusiastic about the prospect of killing people, when really this is not the case. This detail brings to mind the millions of men compelled to fight in World Wars I and II (like Norval and his brothers in the main narrative).
Themes
A 1935 article from the magazine Mayfair entitled “Toronto High Noon Gossip” describes a reception hosted by Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior in honor of Iris’s engagement to Richard Griffen, Winifred’s brother and “one of the most eligible bachelors in the province.” According to the article, it was a lavish affair, with many esteemed guests in attendance.
Considering that Richard hasn’t even been introduced in the main narrative yet, this turn of events may come as something of a surprise to the reader—although the articles at the beginning of the novel did show that Richard and Iris were married. Richard and Iris’s high class status and lavish wedding is reminiscent of Adelia and Benjamin’s, which creates a sense of generational repetition.
Themes
In the man’s story in The Blind Assassin, the bronze bell in Sakiel-Norn tolls at midnight, signifying a myth about the Broken God that no one believes anymore. Alone in his tower, the King takes off his platinum face mask and smiles, thinking about an affair he’s been conducting with “the plump wife of a minor civil servant.” The woman has become irritating, so he resolves to destroy her husband’s finances, which will force him to sell her into slavery. The King hears the bell toll in the distance but doesn’t think much about it, as he has lost his faith like everyone else. He wonders if the rumors of the latest plot to kill him are true. He sees a flash of light in the distance and thinks it must be lightning.
The depiction of the King of Sakiel-Norn here is certainly not sympathetic. It illustrates the ways in which those with power—not only monarchs but also the upper classes and wealthy elite more generally—tend to abuse that power for their own amusement. This is demonstrated by the fact that the King wants to see the woman with whom he’s been having an affair sold into slavery.
Themes
The woman expresses pity for the King, and the man suggests they get another drink. He says that all kings deserve to die, and the woman complains that the whisky he buys is cheap and awful. The man gets up and, still naked, he attempts to pee out the window, which horrifies the woman. He tells her to put on his friend’s dressing gown to disguise herself while she goes out to the toilet. When they are done, the man resumes the story. He describes the blind assassin’s state of mind in the leadup to the assassination: he feels nervous about his own safety but untroubled by the murder he is about to commit.
This passage further explores the class differences between the man and woman and the way this impacts their relationship. The woman feels sympathy for the King despite the fact that he seems to be a despotic ruler who abuses her own power, whereas the man opposes anyone who has unjustly earned power (or perhaps anyone who has too much power at all).
Themes
